Despite failure on ‘Shark Tank,’ duo Jarrett & Raja still win L.V. show
At the very moment one should be celebrating making it onto SHARK TANK to present a pitch to the investor sharks, disaster strikes, and a golden opportunity becomes a nightmare. Who thinks of setting an assistant on fire to make her vanish, then reappear as a mermaid inside an aquarium of fish built into a $10 million piano?
Las Vegas magicians Jarrett & Raja have stunned audiences around the world and in TV appearances, but stardom on the Strip has eluded them. They set out to impress the sharks and have them finance their magic production. “We want to be the next Siegfried & Roy,” the guys told the sharks in looking for $750,000 in exchange for 40 percent of the show.
The gamble failed because the aquarium broke seconds before they went on air, and water poured onto the keyboard. However, Jarret & Raja still pulled off the trick, risking electrocution. The sharks were impressed but didn’t want to finance a Las Vegas show.
Miraculously, though, other producers watching SHARK TANK were so amazed that they decided to step up, and now the duo will headline and host ONE EPIC NIGHT, which premieres at the Plaza on Monday. The aquarium and piano have been repaired, and theatergoers and magic fans will see the trick as intended.
“I’m so glad that we are finally able to do this at home in Las Vegas,” Raja told me. “No more schlepping around the world with a piano, axes, swords and suitcases. We can drive to work at night and get to spend the day at home.”
Raja told me about the SHARK TANK drama: “We went on knowing that it’s not an entertainment show, knowing it’s not a talent show. But we thought, you do need investors to launch a Las Vegas show. You do need to four wall these showrooms. So why not go on SHARK TANK and pursue an investment with the sharks?
“We know it hadn’t been done before with the entertainer in the way we were doing it. We really wanted to give it a shot. It was an amazing process. We jumped through many, many hoops. But, at the end of the day, we went on the show, we performed very well, and the sharks loved it.
“They did not give us the deal, but we never expected a deal. We did not go on SHARK TANK to get a deal, believe it or not. We went on primarily for the exposure. Even though we did not get a deal, we sit here three months later, the producer of ONE EPIC NIGHT found us by watching SHARK TANK and gave us a call immediately afterward.”
I asked Jarrett how they planned their three-minute shot at fame. “We had to show America what Raja and I are about as a magician and a pianist. We called our friend Phil McKinley, the director of STEVE WYNN’S SHOWSTOPPERS, and thought about ideas. I wanted to do something with fire and water. It’s a great combination, fire and water, and highly dangerous!
“Phil told us we were all about pianos, so the magic had to come from pianos. We thought, ‘What about an aquarium piano? A grand piano aquarium?’ No one in the world has one, has ever seen one, and we said, ‘We’re going to build one.’ So that was the water part.
“The other part was to blow a girl up and have her reappear inside the water piano that Raja is playing. The SHARK TANK producers loved it, but of course that costs more than Elton John’s piano. It’s not his $1 million piano. It’s our $10 million piano.”
Jarrett continued: “The piano was completed by the lovely gentlemen at TANKED. We set up the piano on set, and I’m not exaggerating, Robin, the producers told us to hurry up as the sharks would be there in four minutes. Four freaking minutes!
“We hadn’t run the act with the water, and my keyboard inside the prop with the sound hooked up all of the elements going at the same time. We had never done it altogether, and as soon as we get the announcement, we test the water in the tank, and it overflows into my electric Yamaha keyboard. Now I’m going to go up in smoke myself.”
Raja interjected: “You can’t make this up. This is absolutely truth. It overflowed on the keyboard. My face went white. I take my keyboard, I stand it upright so the water can drain out, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘If I start playing and nothing comes out of this piano, this is going to be disastrous.’
“So, literally, Robin, when you watch that episode, I did not know, honest to God, whether my piano was going to work or not, and it was horribly stressful. Thankfully, it did work, miraculously. I should write a letter to Yamaha endorsing them.
“It was like the Bellagio Fountains over my fingers, but the girl wound up inside with the fishes! We’ve already been thinking of doing it that way from now, on incorporating the fountains into the keyboard. Liberace did it with the dancing fountains, which is an old magic illusion.
“For now, though, we’re using the piano to show it melting away as I play it. It’s a brand new piece that took a year to achieve, an epic piano-melting effect involving an audience member, as well as mindreading with the entire audience in the act. It’s a very surprise ending. There’s never been a melting piano before, but it melts!”
The duo also present their vanishing piano effect, seen on AMERICA’S GOT TALENT, where Jarrett saws Raja in half, and he continues to play it cut in half upside down. Said Jarrett: “We’re pulling out a lot of the big illusions. It is an epic show, so epic illusions.”
Raja explained: “The show that we pitched the sharks was temporarily titled MIRACLES. The show would have a five-piece band; a singer, a female singer; and Jarrett would be singing, as well. We didn’t get the sharks to finance it, but this new ONE EPIC NIGHT producer has three singers from NBC’s THE VOICE and with the band integrating me as a pianist.
“It’s ironic, and I don’t know if you call it cosmic. We didn’t get SHARK TANK but did get a show just three months later. Somehow, we have the show that we pitched, but with terms that are far better than I think any shark could have offered.
“I want to give a shout-out to the wonderful Johnny Thompson here in Las Vegas. We are working on the melting piano together. Such a great guy, what a brilliant mind! When we came here in 2000, I was fresh off the boat. I knew nothing about magic, I knew nobody in magic, I was just a musical act, and that was it.
“Then I met Johnny, probably in 2001, the year after we got here. I found him so amusing because he was so Old Vegas. He was your classic stereotype of Las Vegas. I found him so entertaining and amusing. He’s been a part of our development here ever since we arrived. Every act we did on AMERICA’S GOT TALENT, and our three seasons on MASTERS OF ILLUSION, he had some part. He contributed in some way.”
Jarrett had the last word about SHARK TANK, where they were one of only 140 entrepreneurs selected from more than 43,000 applicants: “They may be the sharks, but we’re the dolphins. We hope they now come to see the show they didn’t want to invest in. They’ll realize how silly they were passing up a great opportunity.”
